Wednesday Bible Study: Lying to myself, part 4

 

I was listening to Tony Evans tell the story of Rahab the other night, discussing the lie she told the city leaders of Jericho.  "Sometimes," he said, "Your only choices are two sins; you have to pick the one that gives the most glory to God."  I'm not sure how many times in our day to day lives this occurs;  In the Bible, it seems to happen a lot.  Rahab's lie (that the Hebrew spies had already left, when she was hiding them) I feel fits in the category that Peter defined so well:

Act 4:18  So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 

Act 4:19  But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, 

Act 4:20  for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 

But what is on my heart is to look at two cases where it was very clearly a choice between God's Sovereign will or the truth.  I want to note at the outset that this is a pretty tricky line.  Muslims get past it by declaring it no sin to lie to an unbeliever.  This is NOT what I am suggesting; But God has a plan, and some people had (or have, in nations allowing persecution) to lie to keep it moving in the right direction.

One side of this coin, which I will call, "goes to character", is the story of Jacob's lie to Isaac.  For those unfamiliar, this lie was caused because God's will for her sons was told clearly to Rebekah:

Gen 25:22  The children struggled together within her, and she said, “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the LORD. 

Gen 25:23  And the LORD said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.” 

Esau was the older twin, Jacob the younger.  Now, when the conflict arose here, I am positive Rebekah would have told Isaac what God had said.  But Isaac wasn't one to learn from past mistakes; he had already repeated his father Abraham's "she's my sister" mistake, and nearly caused a war between himself and his neighbors because of it.  This may be an unpopular take, but I just don't think Isaac had the relationship with God that Abraham had, or Jacob would have.  In a future day, Jacob obedient to the will of God, would break tradition about the blessing:

Gen 48:17  When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father's hand to move it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. 

Gen 48:18  And Joseph said to his father, “Not this way, my father; since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” 

Gen 48:19  But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.” 

Okay, so do I know Rebekah told Isaac what the Lord had said?  Not for a fact, but why would she not?  The only way the blessing could shift was if she told him, or if he was attuned to God like the dying Jacob had been with Joseph's boys, or- if they lied.  The first is a may-or-may-not; the second was an obviously not; and so they went with the third choice:

Gen 27:21  Then Isaac said to Jacob, “Please come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” 

Gen 27:22  So Jacob went near to Isaac his father, who felt him and said, “The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.” 

Gen 27:23  And he did not recognize him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau's hands. So he blessed him. 

I think it pertinent that when both men gave their blessings, they were blind; but Jacob had not been blind morally, and did God's will; Isaac, at best not sensitive to the Lord, was blind all the way around.  Thus the choice became: Give Isaac the truth, and thwart the revealed will of God; or lie and fulfill it.  Mark this well: the lie would not have been necessary had Isaac been as obedient to God in the end as Abraham was.

The other side of the "goes to character" coin goes to Michal, the daughter of Saul and David's first wife.  Instead of the lied-to, she was the liar.  Cue the scene:  Saul had been rejected as king by God, David anointed.  Still, David in the will of God was not going to overthrow Saul, who was also an anointed king.  But when it was clear Saul was jealous enough to murder David, David had to go on the run.  And here's where Michal comes in:

1Sa 19:11  Saul sent messengers to David's house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David's wife, told him, “If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 

1Sa 19:12  So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. 

But while she was entranced by the "David charisma" which made her father so jealous, her character was me-first; thus, when Saul learned he had escaped, instead of just saying, "he must have slipped away", she complicated the "Rahab lie" with a further embellishment:

1Sa 19:17  Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?” And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go. Why should I kill you?’” 

I'm sure you all know what CYA means, and Michal did it to perfection.  So let's analyze...

- Rahab lies, totally in the will of God.  Her reward/consequences:  She became part of the lineage of Jesus Christ.

-Jacob lies; it protects the will of God, though his heart isn't right yet.  His reward/consequences: he was lied to by Laban, lied to by his sons.  But still is blessed by creating the nation of Israel.

-Michal lies; nowhere near in God's will, but saves God's plan by covering herself.  Reward/consequences: She gets passed off to wimpy Phaltiel (1 Samuel 25:44), taken back (2 Samuel 3:15-16), and dies bitter and childless (2 Samuel 6:20-23).

Conclusion:  Like I said, this is a very fine line, and only if it is done totally in the will of God will it have no consequences (and that isn't promised!).  Pray that God's will never puts you in that situation; and if it should, for the wisdom to know what to do.